


Whiskey Later

by Nightwinging_it



Series: Whiskey And Fluff [1]
Category: Mass Effect: Andromeda
Genre: Hurt/Comfort, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-06
Updated: 2019-03-06
Packaged: 2019-11-12 18:22:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,342
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18015992
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nightwinging_it/pseuds/Nightwinging_it
Summary: When an easy mission goes horribly wrong, Reyes can only hope he and Scott Ryder live long enough to get drunk and laugh about their horrible luck later.





	Whiskey Later

**Author's Note:**

> Just a little warmup writing I did and decided to post!

As the sturdy crate he hid behind rattled with the bullets slamming into it, Reyes Vidal wondered why things couldn’t ever just go as fucking planned.

Once, just one damn time, couldn’t an easy mission ever just be an actual easy mission?

He slid to the other end of the crate, peeked his head out, and fired off several shots before ducking back behind cover. Scott Ryder was across from him, also hidden behind a crate, sweat thick on his skin as he reloaded his gun.

It should’ve been simple. An exile, a guy by the name of Joseph Brooke, had been causing trouble both for the Initiative and for Kadara Port. Scott and SAM discovered Brooke’s hideout in the Badlands, and Scott had contacted Reyes about sneaking in and catching the exile.

It should’ve been a quick mission. Brooke wouldn’t know they were coming, so they’d slip in, either knock him out and take him alive for punishment or kill him on the spot and be done with it. Maybe have to take out a few guards on their way in.

Not a whole army of guards who’d been prepared.

Somewhere down the line, Brooke discovered they were coming. Either that, or he was insanely paranoid.

And of course, Scott and Reyes hadn’t brought backup. They’d figured too many of them would make a stealth mission hard.

Scott had used his omni-tool to contact his team, but the area they were in was too dangerous for the Tempest to land, and Scott had taken the Nomad. It would still be about 10 or 15 minutes until backup was able to reach them, and Reyes wasn’t sure they could hold out that long.

Reyes could hold his own in a fight, but in the end, he was a pilot. Give him a ship with a gun on it and he’d give Jeff Moreau a run for his money. But holding out against an overwhelming amount of armed guards for 10 minutes with just his gun?

Not good odds.

Scott popped up from his cover, using his biotics to throw one of the guards against the others to knock them down. He gunned down as many as he could with his assault rifle before dropping back into cover. His shields were the only reason he could manage those risky counterattacks. Reyes couldn’t afford to pull moves like that; one well-placed shot could kill him.

But Scott couldn’t keep this up either. He was heaving for breath, wiping sweat off his forehead. He’d been using his biotics to keep the guards from storming at them, but he was getting exhausted from it.

“Shit,” Reyes hissed, and shot at a guard that had been trying to sneak up on his position.

He looked behind him, cursing out loud again. There was plenty of cover if they could reach it, but running for it would leave them too exposed. Even Scott’s shields wouldn’t be enough to protect him until they reached the mountainous area behind them.

The door to Brooke’s base slid open and several more guards poured out. Scott fired at them, getting their attention so Reyes could get off a few carefully aimed shots before he had to hide himself again.

They couldn’t keep this up. Scott knew that.

He looked over at Reyes. This had been Scott’s plan, and he would not let Reyes die for it.

“Reyes!” he called, getting the other man’s attention. “Get ready to run.”

“Scott?” Reyes said, narrowing his eyes.

“Just run!” Scott commanded, rising from his cover and mustering his strength to throw up a biotic barrier.

Bullets hit the barrier and Scott braced himself. A barrier this big, with this much force being thrown against it, wouldn’t last long in his current state. But he could hold it long enough to let Reyes get away.

Reyes knew what Scott was doing. He knew the smart thing to do would be to run, to get to cover and sneak down the mountain and back to where they’d parked the Nomad. Every survival instinct in him told him to move, and he started to rise.

But as he stood, he saw the amount of guards moving in at Scott, guns all aimed at him. The Pathfinder was struggling, arms trembling as he fought to keep his barrier up.

He was going to die.

Reyes snatched the assault rifle away from Scott, and fired.

He took out as many as he could, desperate to buy them a chance. He didn’t know if there were more guards waiting inside the base, but it didn’t matter. If he ran now, Scott would be killed.

“Reyes, stop! Run!” Scott begged, the strain in his voice indicating that he couldn’t keep this up much longer.

“You owe me so many drinks, you bastard,” Reyes said, reloading the gun and firing again. If he could just cut their numbers down…

“I…can’t…” Scott gasped, squeezing his eyes shut and trembling harder as he tried to keep the barrier up. “You need…to go…now!”

Reyes didn’t take his eyes off his targets. He just kept firing, and when he was out of ammo, he fired his pistol instead, lining up each shot carefully because each shot mattered.

“Shit,” Scott yelled, and shoved his arms forward, sending that biotic force crashing into the guards before it could give out. He dropped to his knees, panting heavily.

“Bad place to catch your breath,” Reyes said, hauling Scott to his feet and trying to drag him along. This was the only chance they’d get.

Scott gasped and stumbled forward as a guard hit him with their pistol. He grabbed Scott, and the two struggled as Reyes tried to catch his balance. Scott cried out as he fell to the ground, and Reyes didn’t like the snapping noise he heard.

He whipped out his own pistol and shot the guard, looking over at where the others were starting to recover from Scott’s biotic force. Reyes put his arms under Scott, trying to help the Pathfinder to his feet.

“No good,” Scott said, gritting his teeth. “My ankle. Go. I’ll keep them back.”

“After everything you survived, you’re not dying because of a broken ankle,” Reyes said, and forced Scott to his feet.

Scott could barely stand, both from his injured ankle and his exhaustion. He leaned heavily on Reyes, and cried out in pain as he tried to limp along.

“Fuck, shit, sorry, I don’t know who owes who a drink anymore,” Reyes said as he forced Scott to hurry along on his broken ankle. “Screw it, we each buy a bottle of whiskey and get so drunk we can actually laugh about this.”

They were so close. So damn close to that area with heavy cover.

Shots rang out behind them and Scott shifted so his body covered Reyes’. Scott grit his teeth again as his shields absorbed the shots. They didn’t have much time. His shields wouldn’t hold out that long. Reyes sped up, swallowing back apologies every time Scott let out a pained noise.

They reached cover, but they would be pursued and there was no time to rest. Reyes forced them to keep moving, darting from cover to cover. They had to reach the Nomad. They had to get to safety.

He couldn’t carry Scott. Scott’s armor made him too heavy. He could hear gunfire coming from behind them, trampling footsteps as the guards searched for them.

“From now on, we bring that krogan with us on every mission,” Reyes said, his mind desperately searching for a plan. Oh, screw it. “Scott, sorry if this kills us.”

Scott was too tired to answer, barely clinging to consciousness. Reyes dug out a grenade, pulled the pin, and threw it behind them.

He ran with Scott stumbling after him, and the explosion behind them shook the ground as rocks began to fall overhead. Reyes prayed it would kill the guards right out, cause them to slow down because of the debris, or just kill him and Scott quickly and painlessly. Any of those options sounded good at this point.

The destruction seemed to mostly be contained behind them, which was the preferable outcome. Reyes pulled Scott along until the Nomad came into sight, and relief hit him so hard he almost dropped Scott.

“Come on. We need to get you lighter armor,” Reyes said, thankful as he shoved Scott into the Nomad. He got in and hurried out of there. “SAM? Get me in contact with someone on the Tempest. I don’t care who.”

“Yes, Mr. Vidal,” SAM said.

A moment later, a voice came through. “Ryder? Ryder, are you okay? What’s going on down there? Backup team’s ETA is 4 minutes.”

The pilot’s voice. Kallo? Was that his name? Reyes couldn’t remember. Reyes didn’t really care.

“We got away, but make sure the backup team catches Brooke alive. If anyone gets to kill him after all that trouble, it’s one of us,” Reyes said. “Ryder is injured. Send Doctor T’Perro to Tartarus to get him. I don’t think I can get him back to the Tempest.”

“M’fine,” Scott mumbled, but he was struggling to keep his eyes open.

“Yea? You want to walk yourself back to the Tempest?” Reyes said.

“M’not fine,” Scott said.

“I’ll get Lexi there right away,” Kallo said, and the line cut.

Getting Scott back to Reyes’ room in Tartarus was the biggest challenge. He didn’t want people seeing the Pathfinder so vulnerable, so he put Scott’s helmet on him and took him through the least crowded way he could manage.

Once they’d reached his room, he helped Scott out of his armor, Scott letting out a hiss of pain when part of it accidentally hit his ankle. Reyes lowered him onto the couch, sitting next to him and letting Scott’s head rest in his lap.

“It had to be the Pathfinder. I couldn’t have dated, I don’t know, an accountant,” Reyes groaned.

“Accountant?” Scott fought to keep his eyes open.

“When was the last time you saw an accountant in a gun fight?”

“I grew up on the Citadel. Do you really want me to answer that?”

Reyes didn’t really want Scott to answer that, if only because he wanted to believe there had to be some safe profession out there. Instead, he leaned back against the couch and closed his eyes.

He opened them a few minutes later and looked down at Scott, who had either fallen asleep or passed out.

That seemed like a pretty solid idea, so Reyes closed his own eyes. The adrenaline from the fight was wearing off, and the exhaustion of dragging a full-grown, heavily-armored man down a mountain caught up with him, sending him into a heavy sleep.

***

Reyes nearly leapt to his feet at the sound of Scott crying out. He felt a tight grip on his arm as he reached for his gun.

“I’m okay,” Scott panted, his fingers digging into Reyes’ arm as he cried out again. “I think you enjoy this, Lexi.”

“I enjoy you not breaking your bones,” Lexi said, sitting on the couch and tending to Scott’s ankle.

“SAM took the liberty of letting her in. We were both out,” Scott said.

“I didn’t even know SAM could unlock my doors,” Reyes said, rubbing at his eyes. “Really, I could just invest in a doorbell.”

“Reyes, are you injured?” Lexi asked, Scott tensing beneath her touch as she finished wrapping his ankle.

Reyes had only been nicked by a bullet when the fight first started, but he’d already wrapped the wound with a torn piece of his shirt. “No. My bones are firmly in place.”

“Mine are also firmly in place,” Scott said defensively. “Just not the correct place.”

“We should really get you back to the Tempest. You need to rest,” Lexi said.

“What about Brooke?” Scott asked.

“They caught him. He’s being transported to the Nexus for holding. Cora, Drack, Jaal, and Liam went in to take out the guards. The operation was bigger than we’d realized,” Lexi said. “Cora will fill you in once you’ve had proper rest. Using your biotics like that was reckless, Ryder.”

“Have I ever, in my life, done anything that’s not reckless?” Scott said. He yawned and tightened his grip on Reyes. “You’re really not hurt? Your arm was bleeding when the fight started.”

“Just grazed,” Reyes assured. “Don’t go taking another nap. I’m not carrying you to the Tempest.”

“Then let me rest here,” Scott mumbled. “Sorry I almost got us killed. Again.”

“At this point, I think I’d just be disappointed if a simple mission didn’t end with us nearly dying,” Reyes teased.

“I’ll come back to check on him. We’ll get him back to the Tempest, but he can rest a little first,” Lexi said. “Call me if you need me sooner.”

She left the room. Scott blinked up at Reyes, tugging his arm. Reyes shifted so he was lying next to Scott.

“How’s your ankle?” Reyes asked, putting his arms around Scott.

Scott let his head fall against Reyes’ chest. “Broken. But I’m alive, so it’s a fair trade-off. Thanks for saving my ass.”

“It’s a very nice ass. It’d be a shame to leave it to die,” Reyes said.

Scott gave a tired grin and kissed Reyes. “Yea? And the rest of me?”

“Also a shame to let die. Even if I almost die every time I go somewhere with you,” Reyes said. He frowned, and held Scott closer. “Don’t ask me to leave you to die, Scott.”

“Don’t think I wouldn’t make that sacrifice,” Scott said. He forced a smile despite the sudden somber mood. “A bottle of whiskey each?”

“When we wake up. Dragging you across the Badlands is exhausting,” Reyes said. He kissed Scott’s temple and held him close.

The two drifted off to sleep together. When Lexi came back, they were still asleep, and she radioed the Tempest to let them know that Scott wouldn’t be coming back that night.


End file.
